Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He has authored several popular books on science, scientific history, and the philosophy and history of science, including:Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye; Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design; The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths; Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time; How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, and Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (with Alex Grobman).

“This book’s theme is the one of greatest practical importance to all of us: does some heaven or afterlife await us after we die? Most Americans, and even many atheists, believe that the answer is “yes.” If there is no heaven, how can we find purpose in life? Michael Shermer explores these big questions with the delightful, powerful style that made his previous books so successful – but this is his best book.”
—Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel

“Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality.”
—Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, host of Cosmos and StarTalk, author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

In his most ambitious work yet, Michael Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans’ belief in life after death. Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia delves into humanity’s obsession with the afterlife and the quest for immortality.

Since the beginning of recorded history, and surely long before that, mankind has concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife—where souls go after the death of the physical body. Religious leaders have toiled to make sense of this place that a surprising 74 percent of Americans believe exists. Since no one has ever returned to report what it is really like, we cannot know for sure what awaits us after death.

In Heavens on Earth, Shermer focuses on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality by radical life extensions, extropians, transhumanists, cryonicists, and mind uploaders, along with the utopians who have attempted to create a literal heaven on earth while we continue to live here. The result is a kaleidoscopic overview of our hopes and dreams—and the scientific boundaries of what is actually possible—concerning the afterlife. Shermer concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and what we can do in the here and now, whether or not there is a hereafter.

Adam Felber is an American political satirist, author, radio personality, actor, humorist, novelist, television writer, and comic book writer. Felber attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated as an English major in 1989. He has lived in Brooklyn, New York, and now lives in Los Angeles, California.

He is a regular panel member (and occasional guest host) of the NPR radio quiz show, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!. Felber is the author of the novel Schrödinger’s Ball, which uses as a conceit the concept of Schrödinger’s cat. He has also written for several television shows including Real Time with Bill Maher, Talkshow with Spike Feresten, Arthur, The Smoking Gun, and Wishbone.

Felber also wrote the second Skrull Kill Krew limited series for Marvel Comics in 2009 as part of the Secret Invasion event.